


I May Weep Forevermore

by OverlyCheerfulRat



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:14:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22618441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OverlyCheerfulRat/pseuds/OverlyCheerfulRat
Summary: There are things you can't protect your child from.
Relationships: Thranduil/Thranduil's Wife
Comments: 3
Kudos: 41





	I May Weep Forevermore

**Author's Note:**

> this triggered me holy shit

Thranduil did not fear death.

Why should he fear an abstract concept, something he would probably never experience? Even after his wife died, he couldn't find it in himself to fear a state of being, a mindless fact, a thing. Death was not malevolent or deliberate. If it hurt him, it was not intentional. No, what Thranduil feared was purposeful cruelty; the kind Thror had shown to him.

Elves were a proud people. Thror knew this, and he used it to his advantage. Before his wife died, when Legolas was still a child, at what was supposed to be a meeting between two kings to discuss trade, Thror sat across from Thranduil and smiled like he knew something the elven king didn't. "You've healed nicely," he said, gesturing to his own face. Thranduil said nothing, remembering the burn of dragon fire and the cold blackness that went on for so long he sometimes wondered if he'd really woken up. The scarring was still there, still hideous, beneath the glamour, seen be no one but the healers and his wife.

She had kissed his cheek when she saw, unconcerned by the nearly exposed bone and the milky white of his right eye. "I will see for you," she'd murmured gently, holding his face in her hands. Thranduil thought back to that moment as he silently drank the wine he hadn't asked for. It was bitter, not warm and sweet like elven wine. A dull pain blossomed in his skull, then escalated so rapidly he knew it couldn't be natural.

Almost before he'd processed this, Thror was next to him, pulling him to the ground. His hands cupped Thranduil's face in a mockery of his wife's touch. Thranduil tried to shove him away, only to find that he could barely raise his arm. His body felt unbearably heavy, and the world spun around him, the beautiful jewels of Thror's dining room blurring into a dream. As Thranduil listened to his roaring pulse, so loud it blocked out the dwarf's ragged breathing, he registered a hand pushing his robes up around his waist.

"No," he slurred, limbs twitching in a feeble attempt to push the other king off. Thror just said something he couldn't understand in his addled state and undid the laces of his trousers. And even through the haze that had descended heavy on his mind, Thranduil felt the searing pain. He felt the blood, the tearing, the overwhelming shame that washed over him until he drowned in it. He couldn't breathe past the blood that must have been rising in his throat, that must have been filling his lungs. He couldn't survive this. He didn't want to survive this.

But he did survive, and when the drug wore off he was in an unfamiliar bed, wearing ill-fitting clothes. When he felt the sharp ache in his lower back, he remembered everything and fearfully reached between his legs, where he felt no blood or seed. Someone had bathed him while he lay in a helpless stupor.

His wife was the only one who ever knew. When Thranduil flinched away from her touch, she saw the panic and humiliation in his eyes, and with no words spoken between them- she knew. Her understanding made it... not better, it could never be better, but almost bearable. She knew what had been done to him, how he had been pulled from his throne and made to feel a child rather than a king. She knew of the weakness he'd been forced into, and still she loved him.

After her death, Thranduil wondered if there was anything left to fear. He had been raped, he had lost his wife- what else could happen? What could possibly shake him now? For years, there was nothing, until the night someone knocked softly on his door. The minute Thranduil opened it, Legolas fell into his arms, limp as a ragdoll. "Ada, Ada," he whispered, breathing shallowly.

"Are you hurt?" For a long moment, there was no answer, but Legolas finally nodded into his shoulder. Thranduil picked him up, as easily as if he were a child, and carried him to an armchair by the fireplace. "Tell me what happened," he ordered gently. Legolas just fidgeted, looking into the flames. "I told him no," he mumbled, almost imperceptible. Thranduil's blood froze in his veins, and he willed his heart to beat again. No. No. No, this was impossible. This was so far beyond his worst nightmares-

"Who is 'he'?" Legolas shrugged hesitantly, and Thranduil noticed his mussed hair, his rumpled clothes. "A guard, I think. I don't know him. I closed my eyes." The king struggled to find words, praying that he had misunderstood. "Did he... take you?" A nod, tears brimming in his son's blue eyes. "Against your will?" Another nod, and Legolas bent his head so his hair covered his face like a curtain, but couldn't hide the way his shoulders trembled.

Silence fell, thick as death, and Thranduil stared hopelessly at his son, his only child. He had seen Legolas grow up, watched him master archery, read to him, held him when he cried, promised he'd never let anyone hurt him. Now he'd been hurt in the worst way, hurt beyond what anyone could heal, hurt in a way Thranduil understood all too well. "You need to... you need to bathe," he finally whispered. "You'll feel cleaner."

Later that night, Thranduil would lie in bed with his son curled up beside him for the first time in decades, neither of them sleeping. He remembered the blood on Legolas's trousers, the rage that had burned through him at the sight. Tomorrow, he would find the guard who did it. Tomorrow, they would be tortured until they begged for mercy. But tonight, Legolas was trembling in his arms.

Tonight, he would be there for his son the way no one had been there for him.

**Author's Note:**

> i believe this is what the kids call "blatantly projecting my trauma onto fictional characters"


End file.
